ZigBee chip works with Wi-Fi

LONDON – GreenPeak Technologies NV (Utrecht, The Netherlands) has introduced a ZigBee radio transceiver that contains a coexistence scheme that allows Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and ZigBee chips to work side by side in the same equipment.

The GP501 chip supports packet inspection allowing deep sleep modes for set-top boxes and other host devices that can use Wake-on-LAN-activity messages.

ZigBee shares the 2.4-GHz frequency carrier with other Wi-Fi transmissions. The GP501 has an arbitration system to allow coexistence interface to allow co-located ZigBee/Wi-Fi radios to avoid RF interference when operating simultaneously.

The GP501 is housed in a 32-pin 5-mm by 5-mm package

Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) on the ZigBee chip allows a host processor to go into deep-sleep mode to conserve power. Whereas most other ZigBee transceiver chips only include a superficial inspection of the MAC and PHY headers, the GP501 can decide if the packet has to be passed on to the higher layer application or can be ignored.

The DPI engine is also security aware, blocking unauthorized packets without waking the host processor and ensuring the system does not waste energy analyzing non-compliant packets. The DPI feature can be used for Wake-on-LAN functionality, where ultra-low power ZigBee is used to wake up the main processor from its sleep mode to enable Wi-Fi networking.

"These features make the GP501 the optimal choice for the set-top box/gateway market," said Cees Links, CEO of GreenPeak, in a statement.